If in Self protection we need to be pre-emptive, why do we train by reacting to pre-arranged attacks?

If in Self protection we need to be pre-emptive, why do we train by reacting to pre-arranged attacks?

If we accept, which I think most of us here do, that in Self Protection you need to be pre-emptive. Then it begs the questions, when and why, did martial arts training end up being taught the way it is today, with one student attacking, and the student who is practising the specific technique “defending”?

If we need to be pre-emptive it would make more sense to practice the techniques in this way, the way Iain often demonstrates in his Bunkai videos.

My only thing I can think of is that it allows one person to practice their striking, but if that were true it seems too high a price to pay for making the training unrelatistic.

because Karate is not used solely for self protection. Most of the time people learn fighting (e.g. for tournaments or for real). In fighting it is a tactic to let the opponent atack first to figure out his weaknesses. That tactic is obviously for highly skilled fighters. But to get to such a level you have to start somewhere. Thats why I like the very structured way Kanazawa Hirokazu teaches Kumite starting from Gohon-Gumite and progressing to Jiyu-Gumite.

Martial arts once were used in combat so they did not end up as they are today. They were always taught that way to learn real fighting for live and death situation.

Self protection is a totally different beast and it is rarely taught (properly) at least according to my experience.

i agree with what you say, in the the first and last part of this video shows how one can study and relate pre-emptive tactics / strikes to Kata. while i am aware there is no first attack in Karate, however, sometimes attack can be the best form of defence.

In kumite both parties are supposed to be learning, attacker is training to attack as much as the defender is training to defend. Sure, the encounters are coreographed to end in tori's "win" but its false to view attacker just as target practice.

If we accept, which I think most of us here do, that in Self Protection you need to be pre-emptive. Then it begs the questions, when and why, did martial arts training end up being taught the way it is today, with one student attacking, and the student who is practising the specific technique “defending”?

Personally I put this down to generations of instructors who mistakenly think that physical self-protection is the same as “all in sparring”. The reason being that they only have experience of one type of conflict (dojo fighting) and incorrectly extrapolate that all conflict must be the same.

In sparring – were we generally have complementary (i.e. instantly recognisable) techniques and an initially quite large distance between the participants – blocking and countering works very well. It does not work anywhere near as well in the close and chaotic world of “highly emotional” violence. Being pre-emptive and, failing that, being very pro-active work much better in that environment. However, I would also say it is mistake to not to also include reactive training. As I joke at seminars, we never want to have students who do spot a strike hurtling toward their heads to be left thinking, “I wish I knew how to stop that!” Blocking and countering does need to be taught, but it should not be the method primarily emphasised due to its limited effectiveness.

Paul_D wrote:

If we need to be pre-emptive it would make more sense to practice the techniques in this way, the way Iain often demonstrates in his Bunkai videos.

It’s true that I do begin with teaching the students the importance of being pre-emptive and pre-active. As W.E. Fairbairn said, “We must make our students attack-minded; and dangerously so!” However, a great many kata techniques can be used either pro-actively or reactively. For example, any technique that moves an enemy’s limb can flow from acquiring that limb pro-actively (i.e. clearing the way for your strikes as you establish and maintain dominance) or acquiring the limb reactively (i.e. continuing from a redirected push or punch from the enemy). It’s largely a matter of tactic as opposed to technique.

If you watch the drills on the DVDs “The Pinan / Heian Series” Volumes 1 & 2 – which are the bunkai drills my students first learn – you can see that many flow on from positions that can be achieved proactively or reactively. However, because I want to instil the right tactics and mindset for physical self-protection, performing them in a proactive way is strongly emphasised. Later on, my senior students can choose to do the same drills pro-actively or re-actively. They know what is the best way to go, but we need to have a rounded skill set.

Paul_D wrote:

My only thing I can think of is that it allows one person to practice their striking, but if that were true it seems too high a price to pay for making the training unrealistic.

It is unrealistic for physical self-protection, but it can be fine for sparring or fighting; which is why we often have a hard time convincing people that blocking and countering is largely ineffective for physical self-protection. People often don’t understand the difference and they “know” from their sparring that blocking and countering works well (which is does in that context). Trying to tell them otherwise is therefore an exercise in futility and this is why reactive training remains dangerously overemphasised. So long as people understand such training is primarily for fighting, and has a very minor role to play for physical self-protection, then I see no problem. As always, when determining if something works or not, we need to ask the additional question of, “works for what?” We also need to see a shift away from reactive training as the “default” if the claim of realistic self-protection skills is to be lived up to.

I think something that gets missed is that while we (people training in martial arts with an eye for reality) know that pre-empting is one of the best ways of dealing with a violent encounter THE ATTACKER KNOWS THAT TOO! :)

They don't train to know that they just experience it day to day and have done it before, or had it done to them.

At some point in a violent encounter, where one person is determined to make it physical, an attack will be thrown. With a bit of good management and some luck sometimes that person will be the good guy. The "defender". The person in the "right". Us basically.

Sadly in other situations the person throwing the pre-emptive shot will be the bad guy.

And I think it's from there that the idea of attacker and defender and pre-arranged attacks come from. Although they've often become divorced from how real attacks go down and have been changed into art style attacks (lunge punch in zenkutsu for example).

In Kenjutsu and other older Japanese budo, there is an expression "Ko-bo ichi" or attack and defence are one.

It refers to the mental kamae of both parties in an engagement and I think it is sometimes lost in modern Dojo when practicing pairs.

Although the guy perceived as doing the defending appears to "react" to his attacker, at the highest level this isn’t the case, through correct ma-ai and perception he is the predator by drawing attack on. Essentially he is being pre-emptive - but it looks like he is being reactive.

Many Wado groups also practice Ohyo Kumite in which the you (the good guy that is left standing at the end) initiate the attack.

The last 2 posts are excellent, thank you for raising these points so clearly.

Also what happens if your (the defenders) preemptive attack isn't a fightender, yes it leads into other attacks but what if the bad guy seriously hits back- self protection can lead to dueling for sure IME.

Of course context is everything, what if it is a minor situation and we are happy and able to 'react' - how many UK karate students really need to train for more, perhaps a focus on less violent measures is also valid? or dare I say it, more valid...................in some cases, if self protection is a main goal of training?

Also what happens if your (the defenders) preemptive attack isn't a fightender, yes it leads into other attacks but what if the bad guy seriously hits back- self protection can lead to duelling for sure IME.

I’d disagree with that on a few levels. The pre-emptive strike is not meant to be a “fight ender”, but an escape facilitator. Sure, if people stay around then a more serious situation will develop, and that is why escape (in the correct way) should be the default follow up to a pre-emptive strike even if all it causes is a flinch. The person should not be there for a “fight” to develop … although things can always go wrong.

Duelling is when both people are fighting for a win in order to prove who has superior skills. If a physical situation does develop then we should be fighting to the goal of escape; not winning. The enemy also dose not want a “fight”. They wish to inflict harm, satisfy their ego, humiliate, take money or possessions, rape, etc. A duel is a “consensual fight”. The physical side of self-protection is not consensual and that makes it a very different beast. In duelling we see guards, feints, back and forth footwork, provoking a trained response, etc etc. These things are not present when it comes to physical self-protection. I’ve never yet seen a true self-protection situation that looks anything like a dojo spar or an athletic context.

shoshinkanuk wrote:

Of course context is everything, what if it is a minor situation and we are happy and able to 'react' - how many UK karate students really need to train for more, perhaps a focus on less violent measures is also valid? or dare I say it, more valid...................in some cases, if self protection is a main goal of training?

The trouble with this viewpoint is that we have absolutely no idea of knowing what the outcome of any situation will be ahead of time. How do we know it will be a “minor situation” before the situation plays out?

If we have reached the point were we know we need to get physical then hopefully we are 100% convinced that a physical response is the only path left open to us? If we are therefore 100% sure that the enemy is going to try to harm us, it strikes me as extremely foolhardy to give them the huge advantage of having the initiative due to some unsupportable “gut feeling” that the impending attack is not serious enough to take seriously.

All physical situations are very serious. People in the UK may remember Greater Manchester Police’s “One Punch can Kill” campaign to get this point across to people. Sadly, I have had a former family member killed by a single punch too. This needs to be remembered. Real self-protection has very serious consequences no mater what happens. That’s why getting physical should never be done lightly.

We also need to remember we should always favour non-physical methods first and foremost (awareness, avoidance, de-escalation, etc) and that we would only ever consider being physical is those options were no longer available. As responsible members of society, I would expect it to be taken as a given that we have played no part creating a potentially violent situation. Therefore, if the situation is not “serious” enough to warrant pre-emption then I would suggest it does not warrant any kind of physical response.

If we are 100% convinced that the enemy is going to be violent – due to their body language, attempts to close distance, voice, tone, etc, etc – then we must try to pre-empt to facilitate escape. To decide to “give them the first shot” could result in your death (action almost always beats reaction in these circumstances) and will invariably mean that greater violence will be needed by us as the best opportunity to cause shock and disorientation in order to facilitate escape has now gone. We can’t simply pre-emptively slap and escape now as we gave up that opportunity. We have committed ourselves to a situation which is far more dangerous, requires a greater violence and will invariably be more complicated legally.

While blocking and countering works very well in sparring and other forms of duelling (due to the exaggerated range, the complementary techniques, the fact that both participants are fighting for a win etc) it is largely ineffective in the close and chaotic world of real world violence. It is way to risky to make that the primary tactic as the chances of it working are extremely slim; which is why the importance of pre-emption is one of those things that almost all of those people with real life experience agree upon (including karate masters of the past such as Mabuni and Motobu).

I once saw a lecture by Rory Miller where he talked about the CCTV footage he has access to through his work in the US prison system. When Rory analysed the footage of inmates attacking one another the punch / stab / club rates were generally between 4 to 8 per second! Rory was at pains to point out these and untrained people who are generally not in the best of physical condition. Even if the first shot was blocked (and that’s a big if) you’re going to get hit by the rest in the blink of an eye. That’s why real life violence is so unlike duelling / sparring; there is no back and forth and moving around at a distance for position. It explodes and the first person to land a solid head shot will normally then beat the other person to a pulp. I do find this is really hard to communicate at time for the reasons I stated in my previous post:

Iain Abernethy wrote:

[Blocking and countering] is unrealistic for physical self-protection, but it can be fine for sparring or fighting; which is why we often have a hard time convincing people that blocking and countering is largely ineffective for physical self-protection. People often don’t understand the difference and they “know” from their sparring that blocking and countering works well (which is does in that context). Trying to tell them otherwise is therefore an exercise in futility and this is why reactive training remains dangerously overemphasised.

I don’t think any student should be conditioned to “happy” to react, nor do I think it is feasible to expect them to be able to have foresight as to what may or may not happen and hence pre-plan things accordingly. The key concern though would be the “able to react” part of your post as it is highly unlikely the student will be able to, and to try puts them in a very bad position.

Pre-emption is also not a softener so we can give the enemy a good kicking; it is a means of creating the opportunity to escape and hence it remains the most effective and least violent physical response when things have got to the point where a physical response is necessary.

In Kenjutsu and other older Japanese budo, there is an expression "Ko-bo ichi" or attack and defence are one.

It refers to the mental kamae of both parties in an engagement and I think it is sometimes lost in modern Dojo when practicing pairs.

Although the guy perceived as doing the defending appears to "react" to his attacker, at the highest level this isn’t the case, through correct ma-ai and perception he is the predator by drawing attack on. Essentially he is being pre-emptive - but it looks like he is being reactive.

While I think the above is certainly true of “duelling” – i.e. a consensual exchange where people are fighting for a win (which would include the battlefield use of swords) – I would caution against extrapolating it to physical self-protection. There is no settling at a distance to initiate the exchange or drawing an attack in that context. “Drawing an attack on” would also not be wise due to the close-range and explosive nature of such situations. To do so, is likely to mean that the “defender” would be swamped by a violent barrage of shots coming in at a rate which would exceed the human capacity for reaction.

This is not to say that such a methodology is “ineffective”, simply to say that while it is effective for the contact it was designed for, it is not as effective when transposed to another context. Consensual fighting and non-consensual civilian self-protection are different and hence have differing solutions when it comes to how best to address them.

GaryWado wrote:

Many Wado groups also practice Ohyo Kumite in which the you (the good guy that is left standing at the end) initiate the attack.

While this is true, they are definitely fighting techniques. Both participants square off in a fighting stance, at a “fighting distance” at the start and finish, there is back and forth in some of them (i.e. 3 and 7), “defences” are prescribed beyond instinctive human reaction (i.e. they require a trained set of actions in a given sequence), and they are very much karate vs karate affairs. Again, it’s workable fighting stuff, but not a reflection of the kind of pre-emption / pro-active action associated with civilian self-protection i.e. they don’t begin from natural postures at “talking distance”, they don’t involve dialogue, they are not about escape, etc, etc.

In a fight, people do square off and seek to win. So the Ohyo Gumite are relevant to training for that context. Self-protection situations are very different and hence I don’t feel they are relevant to that goal.

I think something that gets missed is that while we (people training in martial arts with an eye for reality) know that pre-empting is one of the best ways of dealing with a violent encounter THE ATTACKER KNOWS THAT TOO! :)

That’s true and why the way we address the situation before it becomes physical is so critical. A well employed and natural “fence” – one that is indistinguishable from “talking with the hands” – will prevent the enemy getting close enough to deliver an effective strike. If they are close enough then we should have already hit them and have ran away!

PASmith wrote:

And I think it's from there that the idea of attacker and defender and pre-arranged attacks come from. Although they've often become divorced from how real attacks go down and have been changed into art style attacks (lunge punch in zenkutsu for example).

I’d fully agree that reaction does need to be a part of training as per my previous post. As you say, things can go wrong and then enemy may be the one to fire first or get the initiative if escape has not proved possible.

The key is that the feasibility of being reactive in the context of civilian self-protection should be full acknowledged (i.e. it’s not that effective) and that we should emphasise pre-emption and being proactive as being a great deal more effective. I also agree that the reactive training needs to be realistic and not almost entirely based on formal lunch punches, which would fall short anyway, from 10 feet away. You are also totally right that pair work has largely become completely divorced from the reality of conflict and that “historical mistake” does need to be addressed. In the case of “lunch punches from 10 feet” this is not relevant to self-protection or fighting and hence I find it hard to see what purpose it serves.

It sounds simple to do but in reality it is anything but. Someone who hasn't the experience can finish up either forgetting altogether to use their hands to control distance and energy or because of fear and adrenalin their natural fence looks like a really cheesy Martial Art guard. For those people who have only dojo experience of this they might want to keep this in mind when practicing.

Striking first- pre empting your opponent also sounds easy. If you have never done it picking the moment, not leaving it too late is an incredibly difficult obstacle to overcome. This problem is exasperated when you consider often the person in front of you may be used to this type of conflict and will have no such hang ups.

If you as a martial artist have not found yourself in this situation then even delivering a technique with maximum force and vehemence is not straightforward. Fear and adrenalin, combined with indecision and social conditioning (it's wrong to hit people) could significantly reduce your performance.

Just a few things to consider when discussing and training a simple fence and pre-emptive strike

If you are doing it right, the reason to train against singular "attacks" is to study and learn how to gain advantage quickly, and the mechanics involved in that. All done with the understanding that whatever attack you are facing is largely artificial, and that your material should not r5ely on anything specific in order to work.

The problem exists when the drill is built around "the attack" instead of any old attack, or no attack at all, good material will work in any of those situations, and at a variety of ranges, timings etc...training against them, or not, is really just down to what you are hoping to accomplish, all in my opinion of course.